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APPENDIX. 389
" `As to what I have said about. your husband, there is no man placed
in my situation but would have done the same as I have; but that is
all settled between him and me. What you and your husband testified
to on the trial was all true.'
" He made no reservation in regard to the ` sledge hammer.' It
probably did not occur to him."
PROFESSOR WEBSTER'S DECLARATIONS TO MESSRS. ANDREWS
AND EVELETH.
On the occasion of inquiring of Mr. Andrews relative to Mr. and
Mrs. Littlefield's last interviews with Professor Webster, he furnished
us with the following particulars of a conversation which he had with
the Professor himself, on Sunday, August 25th, the Sunday preceding
his execution.-Rep.
The interview had been made one of special appointment on the
Professor's part for solne days before it took place. It occurred in the
morning of the Sunday referred to. After some conversation relative
to the approaching event of his execution, and his sense of Mr. Andrews's
kindness to him, Dr. Webster requested of Mr. Andrews, as a favor, that
he would prepare his person for the scaffold. Mr. A. replied that he was
under the directions of the Sheriff; but, if of any consequence to him,
he would endeavor to comply with his request. All the arrangements
relative to the execution,and the disposition of his body afterwards,
were then discussed; the Professor, as usual, maintaining a remarkable
composure, plainly wholly natural and unaffected.
This subject disposed of Professor W ebster then went on to say:
" NIr. Andrews, I consider this whole thing perfect justice! The officers
of the law are right! Everybody is right; and I am wrong! And I feel
that if the yielding up of my life to the injured law will atone, even in
part, for the crime I have committed, that it is a consolation! "
Subsequently to the above interview, and two days before the execu-
tion Sheriff Eveleth called upon the prisoner to prepare him for the final
discharge of his official duty, and heard from him declarations very
similar to those just reported.
The Sheriff, in the course of the conversation, in allusion to the sug-
gestion that had been made of the possibility of suicide, remarked that
he inferred from the Professor's statements that he entertained no idea
of attempting to avoid the execution by any act of his own. "Why
should I? " replied Professor Webster. "All the proceedings in my case
have been just! The Court discharged their duty! The law-officers
of the Commonwealth did their duty, and no more! The verdict of the
jury was just! The sentence of the Court was just: and it is just that
I should die on the scaffold, in accordance with that sentence! "
LAST HOURS AND EXECUTION OF PROFESSOR WEBSTER.
We compile from two of the newspapers of the day, the Boston Daily Evening
Transcript and the Boston Daily Evening Traveller, some particulars of the
last hours
and execution of Prof. Webster, which we deem not inappropriate, in this
connection, to
the present volume. We have taken pains to verify the statements by a
reference to
eye-witnesses present at the scenes or interviews, and have made an
occasional alteration
for the sake of greater exactness.-REP.
LAST INTERVIEW WITH HIS FAMILY.
Professor Webster was visited as usual by his family yesterday
afternoon, and they remained with him nearly four hours. There is
every reason to believe that they left entirely ignorant as to the day of
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